


I Walked With You Once Upon A Dream

by AngelsBeast



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Friends to kind of enemies to lovers, HYDRA is an Asshole, M/M, Pop Culture, SHIELD isnt much better, Steve is Captain America, WIP, Watching Movies, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, cursing, meet-cute at the beginning, references, welcome to the 21st century Steve
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-03 06:55:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13335831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelsBeast/pseuds/AngelsBeast
Summary: STEVE ROGERS: Your hair isn’t that good, though.BUCKY WITH THE GOOD HAIR: Xcuse me!? just 4 that comment i’ll change ur contact name to flagpoleBUCKY WITH THE GOOD HAIR: and punctuation srslyFLAGPOLE: fuck off I’m nearly one hundred years oldFLAGPOLE: does your keypad only have a limited amount of vowels?FLAGPOLE: Also why are we texting, we’re literally sitting across each otherBUCKY WITH THE GOOD HAIR: the abysses of modern technology *poopemoji*Steve puts his phone away. “That wasn’t a scoop of chocolate ice cream, was it?”Bucky sniggers. “Nope.”-Steve loves his friends, he really does.But he feels still so new in this century, rubbed raw by how fast the world moved on without him when he was cought in the ice.But then he meets that hot guy, Bucky, at a coffeeshop, and he finally feels like he's coming home.Until the Winter Soldier appears and HYDRA fucks shit up.The usual.*WIP*





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the most awesome beta [customrolex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/customrolex/pseuds/customrolex)!  
> They were/are a great help and I learned plenty.  
> Thank you!

“Are you shitting me!?” Steve glances over at the man beside him, who looks unsure if he should laugh or be insulted by the styrofoam cup he is holding. Steve leans over to get a closer look at the cup and sees that ‘Buggy` is written proudly across it in Sharpie. Steve can't help but chuckle his amusement, even when that resulted in ‘Buggie’ noticing him and throwing an amused look in his direction. 

“Order for… um, Steebe?” the young barista calls. She wrinkles her nose at the cup and shoots the cashier a disbelieving glance for the abysmal labelling.

Steve furrows his brow and takes a step forward. “That may be me.” He accepts the cup and checks the name written on it. And yeah, the scrawly handwriting clearly says ‘Steebe’. What the hell? Yes, he is in a (kind of shitty) disguise consisting of a cap and some shades, but even if he hasn’t been recognized as Captain America yet, how hard was it to spell the name ‘Steve’?

“So they got you, too, huh?”

Steve looks up from his drink and sees not-Buggie throwing him a weak smile. 

“Looks like it," Steve sighs. “I really don’t know what’s so hard about spelling ‘Steve’.”

“Yeah, well.” The other man shrugs and a crooked smile stretches his lips. “Maybe the barista was making fun of us.”

“That’d at least make some sense." Steve chuckles and gives a final wondering glance at the cashier.

“I’m Bucky by the way,” not-Buggie introduces himself and holds the hand out that isn’t clutching his hot drink. Steve shakes it. 

“Steve.” 

He lets his gaze quickly flit over the man in front of him, and boy is he handsome.

Clear, lightly tanned skin, longish dark brown hair, shorter on the sides, styled in an artful messy way that made Steve’s fingers itch to comb through it, a dark shadow of a scruffy beard on his cheeks, softening the sharpness of a jawline that could easily cut vibranium and a soft looking pouty mouth. But the most striking feature are his eyes that seemingly couldn’t decide between seablue or a bright cloudy grey, framed by charcoal lashes.

Steve subconsciously wets his lips. Those bright eyes flick down, caught on the pink tip, and then crinkle with mirth at the edges. “Enjoying yourself?”

Steve blinks, caught. “I… um—” He felt a soft heat rise in his ears, embarrassment shooting through his veins.

“Hey, it’s not as if I didn’t look as well, handsome,” Bucky admits slyly and a smirk pulls at those lips as he squeezes their still clasped hands before letting go. 

Steve is a bit caught off guard by the obvious flirting; if he were caught staring at a dame like he just did at Bucky back in his days, he’d have gotten himself a set of hot ears. And if he’d even thought of looking like that in the general direction of guy... He's glad that in this day and age, he can finally look; he doesn't have to fear dire consequences at least. And he's real glad that Bucky doesn't seem to mind at all. 

They continue to stare at each other. Bucky opens his mouth. “Hey, do you wanna sit -” A shrill sound interrupts them and Bucky startles before pulling his cellphone from his pants pocket. “Shit I gotta get that. Sorry!” he says, stepping back from Steve and beginning to leave. Steve tries to protest, because they've barely exchanged names.

“What—” 

“Hope I’ll see you around!” And he is gone.

Steve blinks. What the hell was that?

 

*

 

Steve sits at one of the corner tables in the same coffee shop one week later, sipping a by now lukewarm black coffee. It was his seventh coffee in just as many days in the same café, always around the same time.

No, there wasn’t a reason.

At least, said reason hasn’t shown up.

Steve is well aware how pathetic his attempt to meet Bucky again is; he really is. But he wants to see the gorgeous man again. He also is kind of excited to meet someone outside of the Avengers, his missions or Galas. Yes, he met Sam, but he is an Avenger now, as well. He loves his friends; he really does, but he also kind of misses the times when he was practically invisible, blending in with the crowd of New Yorkers, a feat that is pretty great this century, with modern media and being frozen for centuries, just to rise again as an Avenger and all that.

He actually isn't sure if Bucky realised who he is. If he had, he didn’t say anything. On the other hand, there wasn’t really time to actually say anything.

He looks around the room. Still no Bucky. He sighs into his cup.

Perhaps he didn’t want to meet again? Well, he seemed interested to talk at least; Steve is pretty sure he was going to suggest they sit down at a table together before they were interrupted by that call. Maybe he lives somewhere else and went to this coffee shop just this once? Or maybe the call was a business offer in another country? Or he was ill? Or—

“Hi there, handsome,” a rough and low voice rasps directly next to his ear.

Steve jumps, letting go of his cup, luckily catching it at the last second with his enhanced reflexes, but not without some droplets of coffee escaping and landing on his jeans clad leg.

“Jesus fuck!” he exclaims, heart jumping wildly.

He can hear muffled laughter behind him and turns around, his eyes landing on a red faced Bucky who tries to hold in his laughter with moderate success.

And he’s beautiful, face crinkled with laughter. Steve’s lips twitch up before he forces his futures into his best ‘Cap-is-disappointed-in-you-son’ expression. “Yeah yeah, laugh it up, _Buggie_.” 

“Aww, don’t be like that _Steebe_.” Bucky teases back, wiping his eyes as he slides onto the chair across from Steve, calmed down at least a little. “What a coincidence, huh? Meeting again. Here.”

Steve can’t fight his embarrassed blush down and looks away, coughing embarrassed. He’s well aware that his behaviour of last week is anything but normal and kind of borders on slightly creepy and stalker-ish.

The man in front of him obviously sees through him in a heartbeat. “Aww, did you come here in hope of meeting again? That’s so cute! A bit creepy, but really, really cute.” And laughs again. “Sorry I couldn’t be here sooner; things came up.”

Steve scrunches his nose and looks at Bucky again. “No, don’t be. It’s not like you said you’d come back or anything, honestly.”

It is kind of strange how familiar they are; it feels like falling into a totally new but familiar rhythm. 

Good. A good kind of strange, Steve decides. It’s amazing how Bucky makes him feel, so… anchored. And to be honest, that’s kinda crazy because they actually only shook hands, exchanged names and admitted they thought the other was quite hot. And then Steve proceeded, in hope to meet him again, to stalk a coffee shop.

Yeah, well.

“But I wanted to.” 

“’scuse me?” 

“To meet you again. And maybe, talk a little more this time.” He chuckles at the end, eyes flicking around the room and nervously pulling his lip between his teeth, like he doesn’t really dare to meet Steve’s gaze. 

He smiles, leaning on the table, closer to the other man and catching his gaze.

“I’d love to.”

 

*

 

“What do you mean, ‘cats are better’?!” Steve sputters.

“Well, they are. They have their own minds, for once.”

“Dogs have a mind of their own, too!”

“… keep telling yourself that, _Steebe_.”

 

*

 

“What’s a Hufflepuff?”

“Are you shitting me right now?”

 

*

 

“It’s not simply _blocks_ , Steve! You’re crafting worlds!”

“… out of cubes, sure.”

“Urgh!”

 

*

 

“I hate you.” Steve declares with a scowl.

“What? Why?”

“Because of you I’ve got ‘We’re Taking The Hobbits To Isengard’ stuck in my head.”

Bucky won't stop laughing for ten minutes straight.

 

*

 

“You have a Harley!? Why didn’t I know that?”

Steve shrugs.

“And you’re telling me you prefer taking the _subway_ when you _have a freaking Harley_!?”

“I like people.”

“Stop lying.”

 

*

 

“I’m Captain America.”

“I know.”

 

*

 

“What!? Michael Jackson is a legend—”

“I am too and I don’t moan and scream into a microphone.”

Bucky’s head thumps onto the table and he groans. “I’m giving up.”

 

*

 

“What do you like most about this century?”,  Bucky asks one day. 

Steve nips at his coffee. “Well,” he starts, “medicine is better, for once. And the food, so much food! And technology, so useful.”

Bucky laughs, eyes crinkling. “That's certainly true, but what do you personally think is the biggest achievement?“

Steve stares at the dark liquid in his cup, mulling Bucky’s question over. 

“I… I really like how the public perspective on sexuality changed.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

 

*

 

“What’s a MILF?”

Bucky spits his cappuccino all over the table. “Jesus fucking _Christ_!!”

 

*

 

“Why should we look for droids?”

“… Please tell me you’ve seen Star Wars?”

“ ’Course I have. I’m just fucking with you, Buck.”

“Asshole.”

 

*

 

“Punk.”

“Jerk.”

 

*

 

And so, weeks fly by with Steve always looking forward to Bucky’s presence between his work with the Avengers, mission debriefs, fancy galas full of rich people who fall over themselves to shake Captain America's hand and the usual amount of dead people that turn up.

The Avengers noticed that something is up.

Of course they did, nosy bastards they are, Steve thinks fondly on his way back to the Tower.

But he also knows that they will refrain from actually spying on him, even though, he can feel their calculating and teasing looks.

Well, and then there was the ridiculously large mountain of condom boxes that appeared in his room once after he came back from the coffee shop. There was a note attached: ‘ _Wrap it before you tap it. ~T_ ’.

Which seems kind of awkward. For once he could be Tony's father, age wise, even if their physical appearance tells each everyone the exact opposite; on the other hand it means Tony ponders about him having sex, and whoa, that's something he is so not ready to think about. 

He is also pretty sure it's Nat who regularly breaks into his rooms to leave SexEd flyers in various places (his underwear drawer was just the beginning, followed by those little leaflets somehow stuck in his body wash and water bottles).

He will never admit though that he carefully reads through them, memorising every word, before tearing the leaflets up and throwing them into the trash afterwards. There are some new and, blantly, quite intriguing things he didn't know, even if he is too embarrassed to actually talk about this to anyone. 

Growing up in a neighbourhood like his, he's easily familiar with the basic things about sex. Now there just seems to be so much more information about it, so much more open access. 

And he isn't innocent either, in both ways.

His friends are well aware that he is bisexual.

The world on the other hand is none the wiser.

When he finally found his balls and came out to his team, there was only a big amount of claps on the back, exaggerated eye rolling, some murmured ‘ _about time_ ’s and ‘ _glad you finally told us_ ’.

Steve smiles as he enters the tower and uses the lift to get to the common floor.

Well anyhow, it wasn’t a surprise that they know something is up. He is well aware that he often smiles for hours after meeting Bucky.

JARVIS announces that they arrived on the common floor.

Nat looks up when he enters and shoots him an unsettlingly knowing smirk, accompanied by a tiny wave before she returns to reading her book. Bruce sits opposite her, stirring his tea, next to him Sam clicking through his phone. Clint is probably in one of the vents above them, judging from the soft snoring Steve can pick up from there. 

He opens his mouth to greet them when the elevator arrives behind him again and Tony steps out of it, nearly running into Steve.

“Oh, hey there Capsticle. I kinda feel bad for destroying your post-date afterglow, but Fury wants all of us in the conference room, and I quote, “ _now_ ”."

Steve shares a glance with Natasha but she just shrugs. Seems like she isn’t in on it yet, either.

As soon as they all sit down in the conference room, Fury enters in a blur of leather and a scowl, dramatic as ever.

Looks like he is in a worse mood than ever.

“Avengers.” he growls as soon as the door shuts behind him. He lets a stack of files noisily fall on the table they are all seated at. “We have a situation.”

Fury turns around and activates the screens in the room with a small remote.

Blinds are banning nearly all light from the room and a video starts playing.

The picture is dark and nondescript enough to make it impossible to track down the location. In the middle of the frame kneels a hunched figure in a puddle, clad in an expensive looking suit. Most likely male, but hard to say with the curled in posture and the dark cloth sack over their head.

Another figure enters the screen, and he is most definitely male. 

He’s completely clad in black, nearly vanishing in the shadows that surround him.

His heavy steps come from heavy combat boots, legs clad in armored pants and knee pads, weaponry openly strapped to muscular thighs. The upper body is wrapped in an armored leather vest clinging to broad shoulders and consisting of many straps, probably hiding more weaponry. The face is unrecognisable because of a black facial mask that hides his throat, jaw, up to his cheekbones, followed by dark tinted goggles. Longish dark brown hair hangs limply and open around his head. 

Even without seeing his face or expression the appearance makes Steve’s heart beat faster, all his senses flaring up warningly at the mere presence of the man, even if only on tape. Or it could be the gun that the man holds in a gloved hand.

Either way. He is dangerous.

The dark clad figure grasps the sack and pulls it from the, definitely male, prisoner and immediately puts the muzzle of the gun to his head.

The kneeling man blinks a couple of times, then lifts his head, trying to orientate himself without moving too much. He’s white, on the older side, hair greying, square jaw, face wrinkled. His eyes roll around wildly till his gaze catches the camera.

The Shadow behind him pulls the trigger.

Blood splatters the camera lense, then there is only darkness. The recording ends.

“Shit.” Sam states and speaks all their mind, hands fisted on the table top. “Straight up execution, what the hell?”

“This tape was streamed two hours ago. The man in the suit," Fury explains, “was Alexander Pierce. He was in the council at the top of SHIELD. So this mission comes from as far up as it goes.”

He pushes the files towards them.

“The trigger happy guy is called the Winter Solder, or just Soldier. He’s a killer, one of the world’s best assassins that once belonged to HYDRA. But as HYDRA was scattered and trying to rebuild itself, he became a little more independent and created his own branch of HYDRA, seemingly continuing their work. By now he’s a well known crime lord in the shadows of America, mainly New York. The data that was acquired by Agent Romanov’s latest mission actually brought more clarity to this case. They were files on experiments they forced on people, including the Soldier, trying to, once again, recreate the serum.” Fury looks at Steve, his one eye drilling into him. “The Soldier got furthest in that program. How closely he actually works with HYDRA, we don’t know. But he is targeting politicians and many important high up people in the economy. And now also some of us, of SHIELD.” Fury pauses. “The thing is, he seems to have a frightening amount of high quality intel.”

Natasha leans back on her chair. “So he has someone inside, someone pretty high up.”, she  states neutrally.

“Yes. Another problem is that seemingly no one on this planet has a clue how he actually looks like, even if everybody that has some sort of ties to the criminal world has heard of him.”

“No one?” Sam presses, furrowing his brow.

“So he could basically be anyone?” Tony chimed in. “He even could be his _own_ intel source in midst of SHIELD?”

Natasha nods, a serious look on her face. “He could and we have no way to uncover him if that is the case, not with our currently limited information on him. He is a ghost, a shadow, a scary story whispered in the world of the criminals.”

At that point Tony hums some beats of the ‘Ghostbusters’ theme.

“Some say he’s Russian.” Natasha continues, ignoring Tony, and wrinkles a brow, looking at the folder on the table. “But some say he’s American. Or German. Or even French, it seems he’s fluent in many languages. He’s probably highly intelligent. HYDRA tried, according to these files, to form him into a mindless weapon. Seems like he broke at least some part of their conditioning if he moves kind of independently...”

“Also, his marksmanship is legendary,” Clint pipes up. “Probably best sniper ever. And I’m not just telling you this, we once had the same target. I went in undercover to get close because of the security. Sniping wasn’t an option, at least I thought so, a secure parameter far too big. A shot at that distance? Impossible. But he got him, man, perfect clean head shot to the base of his skull. Immediate death. When I later checked where the shot came from…” Clint shook his head. “Man, that guy took a shot over four and a half thousand yards easily with high accuracy. We checked the video material and it was the Soldier. The thing is, he took a nearly normal rifle, ordinary long distance scope and all, was just a little bigger barrel...” Clint stares emptily on the table, mind far away in his memories. He suddenly smirks. “Man, I've got such a nerd boner for that skillset.”

“Please keep it in your pants, Barton,” Tony comments. “My boner for his tech and modified weaponry is far bigger than yours.”

“Boys, you're both pretty. Stop your swordfight.” Nat interferes with a cool glance, stern facade broken by a sly smirk pulling at the corner of her lips. 

Tony and Clint chorus a “Yes, Mom!” making Sam snort. 

Steve chuckles, amused with their antics. “So he is enhanced in at least some ways,” he states, returning to the topic at hand. 

“Yes.” Fury agrees. “Though it most likely is a bastard version of Erskine’s serum. Not as perfect, not as clean.”

“And our place in all this…?” Tony asks. “Shall we go after tall, big and deadly?”

“That’s the problem.” the director states. “We have no idea who he is, or where, for that matter.”

“Sooooo… we what, wait?” Tony asks incredulously. “Seriously?”

“Yes. For now. We’ll gather more intel, gathering knowledge. Shit just got personal with Alexander's public execution. Dismissed.”

Steve shares a short glance with Sam as they exit the room, ignoring Tony's whine of “But I have a short attention span! Certified ADHD! I don't do patience!” Waiting for an assassin to kill again just to get more clues about him? It doesn't seem morally acceptable, in his opinion. Of course they can't just chase the Soldier like a ghost in the dark, he's well aware of that. He'd disappear like the phantom he is murmured to be. But deliberately waiting, knowing for certain there will be a next victim? Possibly high in economy or politics. Maybe even another member of SHIELD, another family organising a funeral… 

He knows there is no other option at the moment, yet… He has a strange feeling, a feeling that warned him often during the war when things were about to go tits up. 

This Soldier, he thinks, will be different than anything they have encountered before. 

And he is quite weary of the strange mix of anticipation and excitement swirling in his gut at the thought of the dark-clad man he saw executing Pierce on tape. 

 

*

 

“Hi, Steve!” Bucky greets him in their usual coffee shop, falls into the chair across from him and promptly takes the blonds half empty cup of coffee hostage.

“Hey!” Steve exclaims incredulously, making attempts to retrieve his cup. But Bucky pulls it just out of reach. “Get your own, jerk!”

Bucky laughs. “What, can the great Captain not retrieve a simple cup of lukewarm coffee from the clutches of an ordinary peasant?” He shakes his head disapprovingly. “How sad, how sad. The papers ought to know...”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Of course I could. But flipping over the table or throwing my shield at you would be kinda over the top, wouldn’t it?”

“There are other ways than head first through a wall, Stevie.”

“Well, subtlety was never really my strength.”

“Oh really, mister red-white-and-blue-spangled flag pole.”

Steve shrugs. “Hey, that outfit was never my idea. At least it’s not made out of tights anymore.”

“And the nations weep at the loss of that sight every fourth of July.” Bucky sasses back and wiggles his eyebrows suggestively.

Steve feels a light warmth creeping up his cheeks.

He is attracted to Bucky. He is also pretty sure Bucky has some sort of interest in him. 

But they silently agreed to go slow, become friends first.

And to be honest? Steve is okay with that. More than okay, he’s pretty sure he prefers it that way. He is new in this century, in its wonderfully strange openness about sexuality.

Yes, he had some things going, back before the war. But.

New century, new rules.

“I’m sure they do.” he replies, rolling his eyes again.

The brunet just giggles and pushes Steve’s cup back towards him after taking a sip and pulling a grimace. “Bah, that’s so disgusting, man! Black coffee. Having the metabolism you do I’d only devour sweet shit, cause it wouldn’t matter.”

“Not everyone likes drinks so sweet their insides rot away, Bucky.”

Bucky sniffs. “Well, they don’t know what they’re missing, obviously.”

“Rotten teeth? Bad health? Obesity?”

“Fuck you, Steven.”

Steve just smiles and watches as the brunet stands up to retrieve his own, most likely sugary, drink. 

He loves watching than man walk away...

Steve nearly snorts his by now cold coffee out through his nose. That thought was kinda unexpected.

He sets the cup down and wipes his mouth.

He actually panned to ask Bucky for his number the last times they met… but he didn’t really want to spring it on the brunet. He isn’t very… familiar with cellphone etiquette, to be perfectly honest.

He gets pulled out of his thoughts when Bucky sits back down, some freakishly pink drink with cream and rainbow sprinkles on top clutched in his hands. 

Steve blinks. “That drink looks very… um. ”

“Outrageously gay?” the brunet supplies and takes a sip, nodding approvingly at the taste.

“I was going for something like deadly, but sure. Have it your way.”

Bucky rolls his eyes exaggeratedly. “Dramatic much. So what were you thinking so hard about just now?”

The blond stares at him, slightly baffled.

“Oh _please_ , I could practically hear you brooding over something from over there. Spit it out.”

“I, um.” Steve fiddles with his empty cup.

“Spill it or I’m gonna force you to drink this.” he threatens with a blank look in his eyes and points at his sugary horror.

“Could we… like could we exchange numbers or something? I—um.”

“ _That’s_ what got your panties in a twist?” the brunet laughs. “Sure pal. Hand it over.”

It was that easy? ...All right.

Steve pulls his newest generation Stark phone (“Bulletproof, Cap, _bulletproof_ , and hopefully resistant enough that even you won't break it, at least not _accidentally_.”) out of his pocket and handing it Bucky.

“You have to unlock it, smartass.”

“Oh! Right.” Embarrassed he takes it back and lets his thumb slide over the invisible scanner on the side and opens his contacts.

Bucky takes it from there, entering his number, saving it and returning the phone.

“There you go.”

Steve peers down at the new contact.

“’Bucky with the good hair’?” He looks at Bucky questioningly.

But the brunet just shrugs and takes another sip. “Makes it more individual.”

“Rest assured I don’t know any other person named ‘Bucky’.” Steve states drily. “Want my number, too?”

“Just text me.”

“Alright...”

 

_**Steve Rogers:** Your hair isn’t that good, though._

_**Bucky with the good hair:** Xcuse me!? just 4 that comment i’ll change ur contact name to flagpole_

_**Bucky with the good hair:** and punctuation srsly_

_**Flagpole:** fuck off I’m nearly one hundred years old_

_**Flagpole:** does your keypad only have a limited amount of vowels?_

_**Flagpole:** Also why are we texting, we’re literally sitting across each other_

_**Bucky with the good hair:** the abysses of modern technology *poopemoji*_

 

Steve puts his phone away. “That wasn’t a scoop of chocolate ice cream, was it?”

Bucky sniggers. “Nope.”

 

*

 

It turned out that the case surrounding the Winter Soldier was a tad bit more personal than Steve suspected.

“I found out that The Soldier was part of the Red Room," Natasha reports and puts a couple of papers on the conference table, face a motionless mask. “These files aren’t as informative and complete as I’d like them to be, but they say enough. He was a strange mix of instructor and pupil, as far as I can gather. It says that they wished to get him a similar skill set as the Widows. So basically HYDRA gave them The Soldier for a span of five years where the Red Room was supposed to train him, and they did.” 

She sits down in the chair standing behind her and leans her forearms on the conference table, face still showing nothing, mask strongly in place. That alone reminds Steve that Natasha is still severely scarred by the bastards that ruined her childhood, no matter how strong of a woman she is. “It is highly possible that we were in the same place at the same time, but even though I still… can’t remember everything, I’m sure I never met a man being addressed as The Soldier or anything similar.”

Tony speaks up. "So what you're saying is that Mr. Frosty is trained like a … a Widower, I guess, probably same skill set like Nat here, but maybe better because he hasn’t actually forgotten anything?”

Sam shoots a sharp look in Tony’s direction, opening his mouth to interfere, but Nat already speaks up.

“My skills are just as good now as they would be with full memory, Stark. That training peels off every layer of your flesh and is etched into the marrow of your bones with a dull butter knife; it’s not something you just forget. It’s part of you.”

Tony wrinkles his nose in disgust. “Okay, eww, gross picture you’re painting, Romanoff.” he complains.

Something close to a smile makes Natasha’s mouth twitch upwards, but she gets serious again quite fast when Clint chimes in.

“But he has only five years of Red Room training, right? They didn’t have the advantage or the possibility to condition him like a child, from the very beginning," he points out.

Natasha nods her head in in affirmation. “I don’t think they had to actually force him. Don’t forget he was already part of HYDRA back then; he probably jumped at the opportunity. We know he got a quite good version of the serum. He probably thrived under that training.”

Tony nods. “So Mister Cold-as-Ice is like Romanoff but better, that what you’re saying?”

Natasha cocks her head slightly, her vibrant hair falling over her shoulder, face calculating. “There is the fact that he was there only for five years, where as I grew up there and trained early on. We can surely assume he had at least some sort of fighting experience before he became Red Room, but it is actually hard to say just how much and how intense he was trained. And in what exactly.”

“Um, killing? Assassination? Spy-y things probably?”

“But what about his sniping skills?” Steve wonders, ignoring Tony. “Where did he learn that? Or is that Red Room as well?”

“Not as far as I am aware.” Natasha denies, green eyes pensive. “Thing is, was it a skill he possessed before he got his version of the serum?”

“That’d probably explain the guy's mad skills...” Clint murmurs.

“Bad becomes worse; good becomes great. Yeah.” Steve confirms, mind shortly caught in the memory of Erskine’s last night. “At least if the version he got was close enough to the original.”

Next to him, Sam crosses his arms. “Could it be possible that our guy had some military training before or while he joined HYDRA? Probably in a sniper position?”

“Yeah, makes sense.” Steve nods. “HYDRA often collected people that had some sort of skill, even in WWII. Their serum would enhance those. Take a good sniper, give them the serum, and they’ll improve exceptionally.”

“So they take super people and serum them up to become even more super?” Tony summarizes and rolls his eyes dramatically. “So obvious.”

“But effective.” Steve throws in, frowning. “They can practically produce an army of extremely skilled enhanced people.”

“But then why didn’t they yet?” Clint interferes, balancing on two legs of his chair. “Or at least I didn’t hear of any enhanced armies. Did any of you?”

There is a short denying silence in the room. 

Natasha opens another file and taps a finger to the page. “In here it says that most, if not nearly all test subjects didn’t survive the experiments. And who knows? Maybe they are still working on it in the underground.”

“So there is the potential of an army of little Soldiers being out there? Yay.” Tony states drily.

Steve sighs. “So we need to dig deeper. If they still use the program to make Soldiers, we have to know. But right now the Winter Soldier is our priority. So he is enhanced, a weapon and martial arts expert with a talent for long range weapons. Past with the Red Room. Any pointers on who he may be?”

“No, nothing.” Tony informs. “JARVIS is on it every hour of the day, but nada. He doesn’t seem to exist.”

“I told you, he is a ghost. HYDRA probably deleted his past from all records. We are searching a trained assassin and spy who has no existing past. And he’s to good to actually leave any kind of trail.”

“Could we get him through potential future targets?” Sam supplies.

Clint cocks his head. “Yeah, that’d be awesome, actually. But he hasn’t an obvious pattern because of HYDRA and slash or possible freelancing hitman work. And we can’t be sure what crimes he actually committed, many weren’t connected to him in any way, untraceable.”

“What crimes are we sure he did commit?”

“Well, he blew an office building to bits some years ago.” Clint supplied. “He was caught on camera as he killed some guards to place the explosives. He also took part in a hostage situation in a high end Private school in Germany, at least if we take their statements seriously. It’s also said that he lets everyone kill that gets too big of an influence in the criminal world. They also tried to pin several art thefts on him, but we aren’t sure about that yet...”

“So he still could be anybody?” Sam frowns as he flips through one of the files.

“Yeah. Pretty much.”

“So we’re searching for a ghostly nobody who could be anybody. Psh, and people say being an Avenger is as easy as cake.”

 


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to my wonderful beta [customrolex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/customrolex/pseuds/customrolex)!  
> 

The doorbell jingles as Steve steps over the threshold into the warm and comfortable restaurant. He looks over the tables scattered all across the small room when he notices that the person he’s supposed to meet is already there and waving him over with a smile.

He returns it gladly and walks over to the corner booth.

“Hey!” he greets while he strips of his coat and slides into a seat across from Bucky, who still hasn’t stopped smiling.

“Hey yourself, Steve. So. How is it?”

“Oh man, I had to force myself to put the book down and go out the door to get here!”

Bucky sniffs. “Well, it’s good to know I still rank over Harry Potter, at least.” he teases and wiggles his eyebrows. “So you obviously liked it. I’m glad.”

“I love it, Buck! I really owe you for tucking it into my bag last time.” Steve pauses and throws a suspicious look in the brunets direction. “Even if I have no idea when or how you did that, to be honest…”

Bucky just sniggers. “That be as it may, welcome to Rowling’s world.”

“But should childrens books be so addictive? I think children's books shouldn't be that addictive.” Steve points out, cocking his head in amusement.

“Well, as you can see, even people close to hundred enjoy them, so.”

“Oh, shut it! At least I now know why Tony called me a Muggle last time I came to him because I broke my cell phone.”

Bucky perkes up, obviously sensing a great story. “ _How_ exactly did you break it?” he asks.

“That’s not important!” Steve hastily assures and attempts to change the topic. “So, how many more books are there?”

“Nice try, Rogers. There are seven. Now, the phone.”

Steve groans, defeated. “The battery caught on fire while charging.”

Bucky's dark brows climb up his forehead. “ _How_.”

Steve hides his face in his hands. “Thor.”

There is a beat of silence, then Bucky snorts violently and starts laughing uncontrollably, hurrying to clasp a hand over his mouth to muffle his outburst. Steve just listens to his amusement, waiting for him to calm down as he feels his face growing hot.

He’s probably flushing like a traffic light.

Awesome.

“Oh- my god. Oh. My. _God_.” Bucky presses out between bouts of forcibly hushed laughter, face red in an attempt to not disturb the other few visitors in the restaurant too much.

“Steve. Stevie. Please tell me you didn’t ask Thor to charge your phone.”

Another defeated groan escapes Steves lips as he glanced at Bucky through his fingers.

“What? It takes forever for that thing to charge.”

That only fuels the others amusement even more and Bucky curls into himself, flushed face pressing onto the cool table top.

Bucky’s joyful laughter is highly contagious, making even Steve’s mouth unwillingly twitch through all his embarrassment.

After some minutes, the brunet seems to have calmed down enough, a shuddering breath leaving his parted lips as he sits up again, wiping at his eyes, face still flushed.

He pokes Steves forearm, a face splitting smile brightening his features. “What, were you just like, ‘I don’t wanna wait for my phone to charge, so lets ask Thor if he can do it faster?’ and you went over to him, pressing it into his hand and asked him to do his lightning-thing?”

“... No,"Steve mumbles defiantly through his hands. In truth, it actually happened exactly like Bucky described.

Bucky, of course, sees right through his little lie. “Oh man, I can’t believe you Steve!”

But before he can start to laugh again, a young girl in a waitress uniform halts at their table.

“Hi, I’m Anna and your waitress for today. Can I bring you gentlemen something to drink?”she asks politely, handing them their menus.

“Oh, um… I’ll have a coke. Steve?”

Steve sits up straighter and takes his hands from his face. he can feel the warmth of his blush still lingering in his cheeks as he orders a sparkling water.

The waitress leaves them after that and they open the menus.

“So, how far are you actually?” Bucky asks.

Steve looks up from his menu. “With what?”

“The book, you dork.”

“Oh! They just found out who Flamel is.”

“Mhhh, it’ll get really good now.”

“And I’m sitting here with you instead of in my apartment and reading. You’re welcome.”

Bucky chuckles. “Well, aren’t I a special little sunflower.”

“Jerk.”

“Punk!”

They snigger and turn their attention back to the menus.

 

*

 

“Alright! That’s enough! I give up.” Tony throws his arms up in the air dramatically, spinning on his chair.

It’s late afternoon and the Avengers are sitting in the huge living space on their common floor, the setting sun shining through the huge glass front, orange light falling on stacks and stacks of files and paperwork.

They’ve been sitting here for hours, fighting themselves through mountains and mountains of files that Natasha and Clint got their clutches on on their last mission in Siberia.

How they even transported all of this back, he has no idea.

The thing is, normally some people of SHIELD do this stuff like worming their way through mountains of documents, but this was found in an old abandoned HYDRA base and hidden in some room that was sealed closed and obviously forgotten by them and luckily not destroyed.

They caught their attention because some of them had a red star on them and the distinct line of### Зимний солдат printed over it.

The Winter Soldier.

And because there is a frighteningly high possibility that they have some kind of mole, if not the Soldier himself in SHIELDs midst, they couldn’t trust anybody to get their hands on these papers.

What they needed was a group of people who were trusted and not under direct influence of SHIELD.

So they dumped that workload on themselves.

Natasha sits up from her curled in position on the thickly carpeted floor next to the coffee table and stretches like a cat, causing Steve to wince at the loud pops of her joints aligning correctly again.

Clint unceremoniously drops the files he was holding on the floor. “Oh thank God,” he groans and leans back on the huge couch, starfishing and going limp. “This is a bottomless pile, how did we even haul all this out of the base?”

Bruce just sighs and leans back on his armchair, pushing his glasses up his forehead and massaging his eyes with one hand.

Sam stands up, groaning. “Man, I think your couch now has a permanent imprint of my ass, Stark.”

“JARVIS, remind me to get rid of that christened couch,” Tony declares disgusted with closed eyes and points at the ceiling, ignoring Sam’s affronted shout of ‘Hey!’.

_“Certainly, Sir. What shall I tell Miss Potts when she asks why Sir has disposed of her favourite couch?”_

Tony is silent for a while. “Damnit," he finally mutters.

Steve chuckles and straightens his back, wincing at how askew he has been sitting for the last hours. “Yeah, let’s stop for today.”

“A Capsicle approved break! Yay!” Tony cheers, giving his chair another spin. “That calls for a movie night!”

“Tony, don’t you think we had enough information absorption for today?” Steve sighs. To be honest, he is a little tired. And he wants to get back to the second Harry Potter book laying on his bedside table.

“Team bonding, Cap! We should spend more time together, now that you have your sweetheart stealing you away all the time!”

Steve rubs his hand over his face. “He’s not my sweetheart.” _But maybe_ , Steve thinks, _he could be_.

One day.

“And we all just spent the whole day together.”

“But we did nothing fun!” Tony whines back, pout impressively childish.

“Don’t deny the poor child its little bits of joy, Steve," Natasha states with a smile an a dramatic eye roll.

“Listen to Momma!” Tony jells and points at Nat. “Mama knows best!”

“Mama is not holding you in this Tower because she likes your hair.”, Nat counters drily.

“But my hair is fabulous!” he protests.

Natasha gives the artfully tousled mess on his head a critical look. Then she shrugs. “Mine is better.”

Tony gasps and grabs his chest on the right side “Oh, my heart! You wounded me!”

“Wrong side, Tony.” Sam reminds pointedly, making Tony look down to his hand laying on his shirt for a second.

“Oh.” he says curtly and changes hands and the side of his chest he’s clutching.

Natasha rolls her eyes while Clint sniggers.

“So! Movie night?”

“As long as you don’t have a say in the movie we’re watching, Tony,"Bruce decides.

“What!? Why?”

Sam shakes his head. “Man, you made us watch _Scary Movie_ and _Twilight_. _Twilight_! All four movies!”

“I wanted to show Cap even the bad parts the movie industry has created while he was gone!”

“Man, we’d all love to be not aware of those slip ups. But _you forced us to watch Twilight_.” Clint shuddes. “Why not _Attack of the Killer Tomatoes_? That one is at least funny!”

Steve feels his eyebrows shoot up. “Attack of the _what_?” But he is ignored.

Natasha groans. “No, it is horrible, Clint. It’s boring and bad and not funny at all. Like _Sharknado_.”

Steve fears that if his eyebrows go any higher, they’ll make a break for space. “ _Sharknado_?” he inquires disbelievingly, but is ignored yet again.

Sam nods in agreement to Natasha. “ _Sharknado_ was horrible. I mean, what the hell? A storm full of flying sharks? What even?”

“I thought the idea was hilarious,” Tony pipes up, frowning.

“And that,” Bruce explains, “is why you will not choose the movie.”

 

*

 

They actually ended up watching Kiss Kiss Bang Bang because Nat fiercely vetoed _Attack of The Killer Tomatoes_ and Sam denied Clint’s proposal of watching _The Hunger Games_ because he wanted Steve to read the books first.

All the while Tony sat pouting on the couch, ignoring all of them.

But his silence was broken quickly after the first minutes of the movie. “He does so not look like me!”

“Yes he does!” Clint disagrees, wildly gesturing through the air, forcing Nat to dodge his flailing arms. She glares at him but nods in agreement. “He really kinda does.”

“No! No, I won't have it! JARVIS, hold the movie.”

The AI did as told; picture freezing to perfectly show the actors face. Tony jumps from the couch, positioning himself between the assembled Avengers and the screen, facing them.

“See? See? I, for one, have an awesome beard! And my hair is better! I look better all around!”

There is a short silence in the room.

“Oh, come on! Birdman No.2? Be a good wingman for once!”

Sam squints at Tony, then the screen, back to Tony. He shrugs. “Sorry man, there really is a big resemblance. Taking away twenty or thirty years, you’d be twins.”

“Oh, fuck you too, Wilson! Steve! Tell them they’re wrong!”

Steve shrugs and desperately tries to hold on to his straight fassade, keeping in the laughter bubbling in his chest. “Captain America isn’t allowed to tell lies.”

Tony groans and turns to the last person in the room. “Bruce? Science Bro, Brain Twin?”

Bruce just looks at him, opening his mouth to eat some sweet popcorn, chewing slowly and staying silent.

“Honey?” Tony tries to convince Bruce, “Sweetcheeks? Darling? Love of my life?”

“Is there something I should know, Tony, Bruce?” comes an amused voice from the door and Tony swivels around to Pepper who stands in the open door. She is still impeccably dressed in a perfectly tailored cream colored suit, but her killer heels dangle loosely in her hand, hair flawlessly slung into a high and elegant hairdo despite the late hour, smirking at her boyfriend.

“Pepper! Pepper, darling, excellent timing. These heathens claim I look like this guy, this-” He pauses. “JARVIS, what's the name of the actor again?”

_“Robert Downey Jr, Sir. Also known as simply RDJ.”_

“-yeah, that I look like that guy.”

There is a bout of eye rolling going on.

“But I do _not_!”Tony exclaims and throws the Avengers a sour glance. “Tell them!”

Pepper looks at Tony, then the still frozen picture behind him, her smirk deepening.

“JARVIS?” she calls.

_“Yes, Miss Potts?”_

“Pull up a picture of Tony in his twenties.”

_“Certainly, Miss Potts.”_

After a second, a picture of a younger Tony appears next to the frozen screen.

Steve feels a short pang in his chest, the resemblance to Howard is nearly unreal. It seems that at that time Tony tried to be more like his father than anyone else, contrary to later when he viciously aims for being his own person and step out of Howard's enormous shadow.

And the resemblance between younger Tony and the actor is glaringly obvious, next to each other as they are.

“Okay.” Tony spits after some seconds, then slumps into his bean bag, defeated. “I can see what you're all on about.”

 

*

 

When Steve is in the kitchen to make some more popcorn, Natasha slides in behind his back and elegantly hops onto the kitchen island, crossing her legs.

Steve practically feels her interrogation coming before she asks: “So… How does it feel, seeing someone at the ripe age of ninety-nine?”

Steve stubbornly continues to stare at the popcorn machine, watching the corns jump around wildly.

“I wouldn't know, Nat, I’m not seeing anyone.”

“Sure you are.”

“Nat.” He straightens and turns around, facing her. “We are only friends.”

Her bright green eyes search his face and he tries to look open, to show her he really means what he says.

She nods slowly. “Correct me if I am wrong, but you two do go on a lot of dates, right?”

“Those aren't dates, we're just meeting up, like all the other people do.”

“But it's always only you two.”

“Yeah.”

“And you regularly meet to get lunch or coffee or whatnot.”

“Yeah.”

“And you are having fun?”

Steve sighs and leans his hip against the counter, popcorn machine happily continuing its work behind him. “What is your point, Nat?”

Natasha shrugs. “You like him.”

Steve tries to play the oblivious card. “Of course I like him, we're friends after all.”

But she sees through him effortlessly, rolling her eyes a little and smiling softly. “You know damn well that I meant it as in more than a friend, Steve.”

“So what if I do?” he snaps defensively, “It's none of your business anyway.” He crosses his arms reflexively and avoids Natasha’s eyes.

He hears her sigh and then chuckle. “Steve, I'm not going to laugh at you; we're not in high school.” She slides down from her perch, taking one step in his direction. “But I'm happy for you, honestly.”

Steve knows there is something more, something else she wants to say but isn't sure if she wants to share, wants him to know. He can hear it in her silence.

He uncrosses his arms, looks at her and sees that she is actually worrying her bottom lip, allowing him to see that there really is something on her mind, bugging her.

Her face is open, emotions clearly visible. This in itself isn’t something she does often and shows how important this conversation is to her.

He immediately feels like the biggest douchebag ever for immediately becoming defencive; he knows she doesn't really want to pry into this.

Well, she probably does, but she’s kept herself in check so far because of him, and he really appreciates it.

“Nat, I'm sorry. What is on your mind?”

She throws him a short glance and then turns and stares at the popcorn machine. “Just, if you like him, even if you actually ###are just friends, why haven't we met him yet?”

Steve blinks, surprised. “You wanna meet him?”

There is a hint of something in her eyes, something flashing sharply before it vanishes and she chuckles. “Of course I want, we all want to met him.”

He is a little stunned by that. “But he's… Just Bucky. No special forces, no military history…”

Again, there is a flash of something in her eyes and she frowns.

“Steve, we don't want to meet him to recruit him as an Agent or Avenger. We want to meet him because _you_ like him.” She laughs softly and bumps her knee to his thigh. ”And you periodically ditch us to go out with _him_. He has to be _really_ awesome.” She wiggles her eyebrows suggestively.

That makes Steve laugh, flashing images of Bucky fluttering through his mind. “Yeah, he's pretty awesome.”

“And he made you read Harry Potter. He must have a real thick skull if he got you into it. You turned them down when Tony gave them to you.”

“Because Tony made them sound like a bunch of children's books about a complex magical world and at that time I even had problems adjusting to _this_ century,” he explains and then chuckles. “Besides, Buck didn't _make_ me read them; he just somehow smuggled the first book into my bag when I wasn't looking.”

Natasha’s eyebrows quirk up at that. “I like him more and more. You should really introduce us.” She tilts her head a bit. “If you're both comfortable with it, of course.”

He feels a bright smile stretching his mouth and he nudges her shoulder with his arm. “Thanks, Nat, I really appreciate -”

“Where is the popcorn!?” Tony yells from the movie room at that moment. “Did you fall asleep watching it pop, gramps?” That statement is followed by immature sniggering and repeating the word ‘pop’ between Tony and Clint several times.

Steve and Nat share a glance and she rolls her eyes, opens the popcorn machine and fills the content into a bowl.

“Seems like the children got impatient," she sais dryly as she leaves the kitchen. In the door she turns around with a mischievous glint in her eyes. “And what kinda name is _Bucky_?”

 

*

 

The next day, Tony’s voice startles the Avengers out of their morning haze.

“Guys! Guys, JARVIS found something in the Russian part of the files!”

The man bursts into the common floor kitchen, dressed in an oil smeared shirt and sweats with rips in them.

“Tony, did you sleep at all last night?” Sam questions while Clint only blearily blinks at Tony through the steam of his coffee pot.

“Sleep? Nah. What even is sleep!” Tony babbles and seems to vibrates in place. Steve assumes the energy that pours out of the engineer is probably caused by numerous energy drinks he most likely chucked down all night long.

Seems like yesterday was another night that Tony was unable to sleep, restlessness driving him into his workshop yet again.

Steve winces internally.

They all had some sort of baggage to carry around; all of them had restless nights and dreams that forced them to face their own demons time and time again.

They all cope differently.

Sam listens to music and calls his sisters and nieces; Clint often goes to an animal shelters and helps them out; Natasha could be found curled up in the common area or a living room of one of her teammates, rolled in a fuzzy blanket with a hot cup of tea clutched in her hands, searching for silent company, and Bruce listens to classical music and walks through parks or meditates.

He himself draws to find himself in these nights again, listening to music he remembers hearing in the dancing halls down his street, back before the war.

And Tony tinkers.

“What did JARVIS find?” Natasha inquires, more awake than the rest of her teammates.

“Well, I scanned all the Russian files because you couldn’t possibly translate all of them, there were so manny, and let JARVIS file through them, first looking for key words and then actually reading them.” Tony stops and just stares into the air for a while, mind obviously wandering different paths.

After some seconds of silence, Steve softly calls: “Tony?”

The engineer jolts and blinks furiously. “Yeah, yeah, and JAR found something about that theory, well, it's not a theory, not anymore, about the Soldier being former military? Yeah.”

“Okay.” Bruce nods and forces Tony to stop fidgeting by making him sit on one of the empty chairs around the table and shoving a plate full of sandwiches in front if him. “What exactly did JARVIS find?”

_“Well Sirs, there seems to be some mention of the Soldier being involved in the Korean war and being extracted by HYDRA authorities on the 23rd of October 1952.”_

Clint chokes on his coffee. “ _What_!? That dude is -” The gears in his head are visibly turning. “- at least _sixty-five_?”

“More like eighty-six, eighty-seven when he enlisted at the age of twenty-one or not long after. He most certainly didn't enlist when he was a toddler.” Natasha points out and crosses her arms. “Could it be that the man in the video is a new Winter Soldier, a follow up?”

_“There has been nothing to indicate to that being the case, Agent Romanoff.” JARVIS answers dutifully. “From the files it is possible to assume that the training and the acceptance of the serum took so long that another Soldier wouldn’t be a real possibility. Also, the Soldier seems to be the only one that took their serum well.”_

“So, what?” Bruce asks. “Did the serum stop his aging? Because the man on the tape doesn’t seem to be eighty-six.”

“A double? It's a possibility with the mask and all.” Sam reminds them, a concentrated look on his face.

Clint shakes his head. “That’d mean a double took the impossible shot from the rooftop. Nah, it is him. But how?”

“Well, as far as we know my serum didn’t stop my aging, it just slowed it a bit. But that wouldn’t be enough... Is there a way to actually _stop_ his aging, like the ice did for me?” Steve asks, furrowing his brow.

If the Soldier has the serum, or at least a quite similar version of it, there is a possibility he could survive in the ice.

Suddenly the room feels much colder and Steve looks up. Natasha has a dark look in her eyes. “There is something.” She tells, but her facial expression makes clear what disgust she holds towards whatever she’s thinking about. “It’s called cryo-chamber. It’s like a reinforced steel coffin on wheels and is capable of shock-freezing humans in mere seconds.”

Tony’s face turns thoughtful. “JARVIS, please search the archives after plans for something like a cryo chamber.” he garbles out around a mouth full of Sandwich.

_“Certainly, Sir.”_

“Tony? What are you thinking about?” Bruce wants to know.

“It’s just, it sounds kind of familiar. And dear old dad had that obsession about being frozen and reanimated in the future for some time?”

“You think Howard would built something like that for HYDRA?” Steve asks Tony, unable to keep the doubt completely out of his voice.

“Steve, maybe the man you knew was different, but my father built weapons that killed thousands of people and he sold them to both sides! I think it's not too hard to imagine he built something thing else that wasn't for the best of humanity.”

Steve opens his mouth to answer Tony, to try to explain that wars leave scars on the best of men, even if that doesn't excuse founding a weapons factory.

The picture of the man who risked his life for an unauthorised flight into enemy territory just wouldn't fit to the person who supposedly sold weapons to the very same people who have been trying to shoot him down.

But before he can get a word out, Jarvis interrupts them.

_“Sirs, Ma'am, I believe I found what you were looking for.”_

A hologram appears over the breakfast table, rotating slowly.

Steve stares at it and tries to understand, but he can’t really decipher the scrawled notes all over technical drawings and formulas. All the same, he’d recognize Howard's chicken scratch everywhere.

_“It seems indeed to be a cryo-chamber of sorts, at least the technicalities of one are similar enough to what Miss Romanoff described. Though it’s not fully designed yet.”_

“Yeah…” Tony mumbles while studying the scrawled plans and ideas of his father.

“Well, whatever this is exactly, the Red Room had a cryo-chamber.” Natasha offers darkly. “They told us the Boogeyman was caught in it, a monster under their control, theirs to order. It was in one of the medical rooms, always cold, always dark and machines around it always humming with electricity.” She snarls bitterly, gaze seemingly far away in her past.

“Could that Boogeyman actually be the Soldier?” Clint asks her while laying a calming hand on her arm. Natasha deflates a little at his touch and shrugs.

“It’s certainly possible. _Someone_ was in there. Someone human. One of the girls snuck in one time to have a look at the cryo-chamber. She told us that she heard the scientists do something to what or whoever was in it that day, and she wanted to know what. She had a unhealthy obsession with the whole thing. She told us that she saw a hand pressed to the thick window in front, a human hand. Not a Bogeyman, according to her.”

Steve bites his lip. So it could have been the Soldier? “What happened?” he asks.

Natasha sighs. “The girl was terminated the next day. Probably because of her sneaking around. The next night we all heard screaming and loud whirring noises, and the day after the whole medical wing smelled like ozon and burning flesh. It was disgusting.” Nat scrunches her nose as if she can still smell it. “The cryo-chamber was nowhere to be found after that.”

“So we can assume the Soldier was possibly frozen in that chamber. Or something similar, we now know they had the tech.” Bruce summarises.

Sam hums in agreement. “And that he was a soldier in the army. A long time ago.”

“And that Steve is closest to him, age wise!” Clint states and sniggers.

Steve rolls his eyes.

“But what if it was someone else? Another successful experiment with the serum? Another possible Soldier?” Natasha points out. “Maybe there are more than one, even if it’s not an army.”

The possibility of that alone made them all go quiet.

Steve sighs. “We probably need more information on that before we know for sure. But we should keep it in mind, not let it surprise us if it is the case.”

Tony nods, half asleep. It seems the energy drinks are finally losing their effect. “At least one other man out of time, huh. _And_ a super soldier. Interesting times we're living in, right, Capsicle?”

 

*

 

Relieve floods Steve when Bucky answers after the first ring.

“Steve? What are you doing, calling at -” there is a short pause and some rustling going on on the other side of the connection “two thirty-seven in the morning?”

“Bucky. _Bucky_. He died, fuck, he _died_ , murdered, just like - _bam_ , and _gone_ , and Bucky, what the _fuck_ , I can’t even, what is going on, I can’t-”

“Steve. Steve! Hey, what are you talking about?” Bucky interrupts Steve’s rambling forcefully, sounding really concerned.

Steve pulls in a shuddering breath and snuggles deeper into the covers of his bed. “He killed him, Buck! Just because he was there, and just because they were man enough to both grab it-” Steve pulls in a violent breath in order not to suffocate “-And that _asshole_ , I could _hit_ him, oh God, _fuck_ , what _even_! He’s such a _coward_ , that damn rat, I can’t _believe_ -”

“Steve, _what_? Breath buddy, hey, come on. _Breathe_.” Bucky commands gently but firmly.

Steve gulps down some shaky breaths, hearing Bucky count them over the phone.

“-five, you’re doing good, Stevie, six, there you go, it will be alright buddy. Seven. Eight. Just like that. Nine, ten.”

Steve shakily lets out the air, still sitting on his bed, slumped against the wall.

He is calmer, a bit at least, head clearing slowly.

“Hey.” he hears Bucky’s voice over the phone and judging from the bang heard in the background, he seems to have closed some sort of door. “I stepped out of the meeting now, Steve. Can you tell me what is going on?Are you alright? Were you on a mission?”

Steve’s still sluggish brain catches on the word ‘meeting’. “Fuck, did I interrupt? Sorry Buck, I didn’t mean to, I mean, It’s silly, I can call later, I mean, fuck, it’s already half past two? I’m sorry, I-”

“Steve, hey, no big deal! It was boring anyway, we were only planning out the last details for the huge business gala in two weeks. What happened?” He repeats, concern clearly in his voice, and Steve remembers.

“Buck, Cedric died!” he nearly wails and flops back on his pillow, burying in the soft covers and glaring at the traitorous book that innocently lays on the foot end of his bed. He pokes it with his big toe. It skitts closer to the edge of the mattress.

There is a choking sound on Bucky’s end that suspiciously sounds like forcefully muffled laughter.

“Are you laughing at me!?”, Steve growls, disbelieving.

“I- no, Steve, of course not!” Bucky presses out, obviously making a tremendous effort to smother the laughter that bubbles up in him.

Steve scowls at his phone even though he is well aware that Bucky can’t see him. “That doesn’t sound convincing at all.”

“Steve, I’m sorry pal, it’s just, that was kind of not what I was expecting at all?” Steve can still hear the amusement in the other's voice. “I was afraid someone was seriously hurt!”

“I am! Cedric is! He’s dead, Buck!”

His enhanced hearing can just decipher Bucky’s mumbled ‘If they’re dead, they can’t be hurt, you drama queen’ over the phone and he narrows his eyes. “What was that, Buck?”

“I said I know it hurts that Cedric dies!” Bucky quickly corrects himself.

Steve nods. “Sure you did.” Then he remembers that Bucky just was in a meeting. “Are you sure you can just leave the meeting? I don’t want you to get in trouble…”

“Yeah, Steve, seriously. Firstly, me and my team went over that a hundred times already, I can most likely recite it word by word. Secondly, I am the boss. I won’t get in trouble.”

“Wait, you are the boss and just left your meeting? What the hell, Buck?” Steve hisses, disbelieving. “You can’t just leave your team allone!”

“Steve, they are highly capable and I trust them. They probably won’t blow up anything as long as they know I’m just outside of the door anyway.”

“What.”

“Pietro is a little pyromaniac.” Bucky states, as if that would explain everything.

The thing is, Steve muses, it sadly kind of does.

“What did you say you work as, again?” Steve questions, uncertain.

“I didn’t.” Bucky states with a chuckle. “But my team and I are currently planning that big Gala in two weeks? At the opening of the new luxus hotel in Manhattan?”

“Oh! Right, yeah, Tony mentioned something. Called it ‘Snob-Party Full Of The Rich And Evil’, as far as I remember, and continued to rant that he wants an invitation as well, because, according to him, he fits right in.”

He hears Bucky laugh through the phone. “What party does Stark not wanna be a part of?”

“True.” Steve agrees with a smile. “You should have seen his expression when he realised that Pepper got an invitation instead of him!”

Bucky snorts in amusement. “No way! I’d have loved to see that.”

They continue to talk over the phone for almost forty minutes before the first yawn interrupts Bucky mid sentence.

“Man, I think I should go to sleep.” Bucky sullenly murmurs after the fifth yawn, the tired noise infecting Steve with a yawn of his own.

“Yeah, I probably should, too. We have some sort of meeting tomorrow… well, today.” he adds after another look at the alarmclock on his bedside table.

He groans. Since the serum he doesn’t need as much sleep, but after that little emotional exhaustion about Cedric’s death… adding to that, he already stayed up most of last night because he couldn’t put the book down then, either.

Curse those awesomely addictive pieces of well written literature.

“Okay. I think i should check in on Pietro and Wanda, anyway. Come to think of it, they seem suspiciously silent…” Bucky trails off.

 _Oh crap, right!_ Buck’s meeting! “Shit, your meeting! Please don’t tell me they’ve been waiting for you all this time?” Steve pleads, feeling guilty for dragging Bucky out of his meeting even more now. He’s an adult! He didn’t have to call someone just because a _fictional character_ dies!

… Yeah, right.

“Hmmm.” Bucky humms. “I have no idea.” Steve hears a door opening. Bucky is probably poking his head into the meeting room.

“Wanda? Where is Pietro?”

Even Steve’s enhanced hearing cand make out the words of the female voice, Wanda’s, says. But Bucky he can hear loud and clearly.

“What!? Seriously? Did he take that ‘Burning Idea’ to the labs at least? Please tell me he did?”

Steve nearly laughs at the desperate hope sounding in Bucky’s words.

Wanda seems to have come closer as he can hear her over the phone now. “Maybe. Probably.” He can hear her say, a slight raspy accent coloring her words.

Bucky groans. “Steve, I have to go, find Pietro. Last time he decided to take his experiments to the sitting room and my favourite couch hasn’t been the same since!”

That makes Steve laugh. “Oh my God, what the Hell. Alright. See you soon?”

“Yeah.” Bucky says softly and Steve feels a comfortable warmth flood his entire body. “See you soon, Stevie.”

And he hangs up.

For some minutes Steve just smiles sillily and stares into space.

He sighs and turns his phone off.

His gaze lands on the book that lays innocently right at the edge of his bed. After some seconds he nudges it with his foot again, this time not stopping till it topples over the edge.

It land on the carpeted floor with a satisfying thunk.

Steve smiles at that and crawls under the covers, turning the lights off.

He’ll continue reading later.

When the sun is up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Already working on chapter three!  
> If you liked it, please comment and like! :)

**Author's Note:**

> Second chapter is already close to finished.  
> So see you soon!


End file.
